home Editorial Editorial: Oscar Lovefest ’08

Editorial: Oscar Lovefest ’08

It’s coming. Every year Hollywood takes time out of their busy schedule to remind us why we love them, and they do it dressed so smartly. I thought I already knew I liked movies, but I guess I forgot. So for the 80th time, Hollywood will be handing out little gold men, and jogging my memory.

The highlights of the night for me will be as follows:

1.) A winner will say, “I wrote this down so I won’t forget anyone,” then awkwardly laugh. It makes me wonder if they actually wrote that down too. Or maybe it was a note: Start with a joke. And then they will end with, “I’m sure I am forgetting some people.” Hell of a lot of good that list you wrote down did then.

2.) A winner will humbly accept an award. This begs the question: when accepting an award at a ceremony set up by the industry to celebrate the industry, can you ever truly be humble? That’s like me having a sexy abs party and then humbly say, “oh are my abs sexy?” when, in fact, I know that they are. These people make a career out of being acutely aware of everything going on around them, and being so self involved on camera (or behind the camera), to a level that if a regular Gary/Betty were that self aware, you would reject them as too into themselves. This being the case, can we admire their humbleness and apparent shock that someone paid attention to them? If they are so in tune, they must certainly have some sense of people liking what they did. Or at the very least have an assistant tell them that they are liked.

3.) Someone will say, “I didn’t expect this,” but if that were the case, you wouldn’t have prepared a speech. Even a just-in-case-speech requires a little smidgen of expectation.

4.) Seeing a tribute to an icon past, and getting a shot of the crowd where they all applaud but you know none of them actually has any idea who they are applauding.

5.) I love the pre-Oscar talk on E! too. It reminds me once a year that yes, in fact, Joan Rivers is still alive.

These are the things I look forward to. Sure there are other things going on at the ceremony. Last year Leonardo DiCaprio told us about global warming. If not for him, where would I have received this information? Scientists? Last scientist I trusted broke my heart and stole my Spiderman pajama’s. Never again. So, thank you Leo. See, Hollywood is not only letting us know how awesome they are with movies, but they are also showing us how super they are at life, and how much we have to learn from them.

Does this mean that I will not watch? No. Hollywood has something to say about how great they are, and they only need five hours of your time to say it. If you can’t spare that much time for self indulgence then you’re probably a communist who hates puppies. So watch the Oscars, Hollywood is very insecure.

-Brandin

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